Romans chapter 1 and verse number 26. It says, for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was meat. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for this opportunity we have to come here, Lord, and just look at your word. I pray that, God, you speak to every heart. I pray that you'd help us, Lord, put aside pride and anything else that would hinder us, and, Lord, help us to be receptive to your word and to learn from you, God. I thank you, Lord, for all of this. Pray that you, Lord, you put aside anything that might distract or stop us, Lord, from taking your word today. We ask it in your son Jesus' name. Amen. So as we come to this passage, there is a particular phrase that's used twice in these verses that sounds bad at the surface, I think. When his way of explaining homosexuality, and that's part of it, there's more to it than just this, is he uses a phrase of that women did change their natural use into that which was against nature, and he also mentions men leaving the natural use of women for men. And when you say it like that, it sounds much more offensive than what it really is, to be honest. And it's not because the Bible's wrong in the way it's phrasing it, it's because we bring our own personal baggage to it, and we don't like that he would say somebody has a natural use. But what he means is very simple, that there are ways in which God has designed things. That's what he means by use. There is a way in which he has designed you to function as a person. There's a way in which he has designed men and women to function as individuals. And we are supposed to fit into those roles. And there's a great deal of what the Bible says about it. Concerning some of it, I'll deal with it more next week, especially when we get into the idea of what he means by women leaving natural use. and you get into the issue of feminism and stuff, modern versions of feminism and all of that. We'll deal with those things next week. But today I want to park on that idea of what he means by natural use, because once you understand that, it actually helps you to understand another word in the Bible. Because you will notice that several of the things he talks about here and in the latter part of the chapter are things that the Bible refers to as being abominations in other parts of the Bible. And the reason for that is what he is doing here is using what is essentially a synonym to what abomination means. If you were to ask what it means for something to be called an abomination in the Bible, we get this idea that it's really gross, it's some sin that's really bad because I don't like it, or any of that kind of stuff. But in reality, when he talks about something being an abomination, God is talking about the fact that it is a sin against the very design of nature. Like when you look at how God has made things to function, when something is abominable, when it's an abomination, we say that because it's not natural. It's against the very nature of how something was made to be. So when he's talking about this idea that the sins he's speaking of in verse 26 and 27 are against nature. It requires that a woman goes against her natural use or against her nature, and it requires that a man abandon the natural use and go against nature. He's using a word that essentially means the same thing as abomination. He's saying the same thing, he's just phrasing it slightly differently. And that's not unusual, you see that a lot in the Bible, that passages are connected by clear thoughts, so then when you look at them, you'll see that he uses words that mean Very similar things, or almost the same thing many times. And he does it to show you what abomination means from a different perspective. And the reason that it's important is because so many times we come to a word like that in the Bible, and we read into it with our own personal feelings about something. And, oh, this is an abomination because this is disgusting. This is an abomination because I think it's gross. This is an abomination because I am against this, because I hate this. But in reality, God says he called it an abomination because it is a sin that requires you to go against the natural use of how he has designed things. And there's a great number of things in the Bible referred to as an abomination. That's another mistake we often make, is we come to this idea and everybody knows that the Bible refers to homosexuality as an abomination. And so many times you approach the scripture with this idea that that's the abomination. But in reality, it's just one of many, many, many things listed that way in the Bible. Because God says there are a great many sins that you can commit that are against the natural use. It's against the way that things are naturally designed to function and work. And so that's today what we're going to try to do. We're going to try to understand this idea of changing the natural use to that which is against nature. We're going to try to go in and look at why God calls certain things an abomination and the things that He does. And some of them, I'll be honest, some of them I will not go into them very deeply because I spent months preaching on them. Like idolatry, I don't need to go very deep in that. We've talked about it. often owned throughout Romans chapter 1 for months now. When it talks about homosexuality, I don't have to go into that today because that's what the next verse is about, and I'll go to it much deeper there. So you may feel strange when you hear some of the things I choose to focus on more because some of them are not the ones that you consider to be the biggest issues. But you'd be surprised sometimes what God considers to be the bigger issues. So for that, there is one passage in the Bible. There's one book and one passage that if you just get those two things, you can find almost everything that God refers to as an abomination. Not necessarily all of them. There's a few exceptions, but almost all of them you can find them between the chapter of Leviticus 18 and the book of Proverbs. The exceptions to that would be, for example, when he talks about a man wearing women's clothing, a woman wearing man's clothing, that's in a different passage. And there's a few others, and I'll give you some references to some of those. But if you have Leviticus chapter 18, and you have the book of Proverbs, you have almost everything that is called an abomination in the Bible. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go through Leviticus 18, and if time permits, we'll at least mention what's in Proverbs, because I don't see it being possible to get through everything today. So we're going to go through these things and try to understand why God says this is an abomination, as opposed to why you think it's abominable, as opposed to why you're against it, to understand why God is against changing his design. And that shouldn't be hard to understand, because all of you are against people messing with your stuff. Lori gets mad when I add sauce to the food that she cooks because it's an abomination to her. To her, it's against nature that she spent all that time seasoning the food and flavoring it, and then I come in and I change it. Or maybe all the Romanians will relate to this, that once you spend all that time making sarmale and then somebody comes and they just break it and mix it all up after you spent hours rolling the cabbage rolls, that's an abomination to you. You understand that that's, when you say an abomination, it's not this idea that it's something that's evil and wicked because it's disgusting to me, it's something that's almost unfathomable because it's against the very nature and design of things. Like, why would you even do that? It goes against, you have to go against nature to do that. That's what God means when he says something's abomination. That's why actually the first time the word is in the Bible, it's not talking about God. It's talking about the Egyptians and it's saying something about the Hebrews, something about the way they live is an abomination to the Egyptians. Because the first time God's using it, he's showing that things can be an abomination to you. There's lots of things that if we were to actually sit here and talk about it and form an opinion, that maybe to you that is abominable. Maybe to you, you don't understand why anybody would do that. It's not natural. There's no reason to do that. It's against the very design of things. It makes your life needlessly complicated and hard when you do it. And to you, your list, I guarantee, would not be as good as God's list, but you may have a lot of the same things on there that he would have. You would have some things on there like breaking Somali after you spent hours rolling cabbage leaves, I understand that. You would have a lot of things that, I'm not even gonna try to touch on Filipinos and their culture, I'm not even gonna get in that, that's way worse. The point is that there's a lot of things that, to you personally, you would find that unnatural that somebody would do such a thing. And it's normal, everybody has that. You understand we as a society debate about some of the dumbest things. I still think about sometimes the idea of how we fight so much over which way a roll of toilet paper goes on the roll. And I feel very strongly about it. I have my opinion, I feel very strongly about my opinion, but I hear people talking about if somebody puts it the other way, they should be executed, because that's how strong we as a society feel about things that are silly sometimes. So when God says something is an abomination to you, it means to you, when you look at somebody doing that, you can't understand why they would do that. You can't understand why somebody would go so much against what is natural. It just makes sense to do it this way. Why would you do it another way? And that's what he means. So when God tells you that a sin you commit is an abomination to him, he's not putting it on some plane of these are the most gross sins and the most disgusting. No, he's putting it on a level of it's like God in heaven looks at you doing that and can't understand why you would do that, so to speak. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to insult God by saying can't understand, but I hope you know what I mean when I say that. Like God looks at you doing that and says it's completely unnatural. Why would you do that? I'm not questioning His omniscience and the fact that He knows and understands. I don't mean it like that when I say this. But I'm saying when God says that you did something that to Him is an abomination, He in His holiness, He in His righteousness, He in His wisdom looks at that and says, that doesn't make any sense. It's unnatural. There's no reason to do that. Why would you do it? Just stop and think about it for a minute. That's what God's trying to get you to understand. So saying that, we're going to start with some things. We're going to start by reading what he says about abominations at the end of Leviticus chapter 18. And then I'm going to dive into the one that is most likely going to offend everybody today. And I'm going to spend the most time on the one that's most likely going to offend everybody today. And then I'll move on to the stuff that nobody in this room should logically be offended by. All right, so Leviticus chapter 18 and verse number 24. says, defile not yourselves in any of those things, for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you. So these things, just so you know, is what he's talked about in all the verses up until this point. And we're going to go back through most all of these verses. Some of them I'm going to skip over because it's just giving you parameters of what he means by this particular sin. But he says not to do these things which were done by the nations before. Verse 24. Verse 25 says, and the land is defiled, therefore, I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it. And the land itself vomited out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations. neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you. For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled, that the land spew not you out also when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the soul that committed them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein. I am the Lord your God. So what is he saying to Israel? He says, the land I'm getting ready to give you is a land that has been defiled for generations, for hundreds of years at this point, since Israel was put into Egypt, while the Canaanites came in. And I'm going to go ahead and talk about something completely different for just a second. Some of the people who are in the know will know why I'm bringing this up. But have you ever heard anybody try to say that the son of Ham was cursed, or Shem was cursed, whichever one, and it passed down to a certain group of people in the world? That's nonsense. It was the Canaanites. The son of him named Canaan was the one who was cursed because God knew the Canaanites were going to come into this land, and they were going to defile it. If you know what I'm talking about, that's good. You skipped an entire ridiculous doctrine that has been making its rounds wherein people believe an entire race of people upon the earth are cursed because they descended from one of the sons of Noah. even though the Bible clearly says it was not the son of Noah that was cursed, it was Canaan, who is the father of the Canaanites. It's not very hard to figure that out. It's pretty simple, pretty basic Bible study. You don't have to be very smart to get that one. But there you go. You have your extra lesson thrown in for free there. So you have this thing that Canaan was cursed and threw him the Canaanites because God saw in them what they were going to be. and that they would come in and take over the land of Israel while the Israelites were in Egypt. And that for a long time, this land that already belonged to the Israelites, that they would have to go and be away from it, and the Canaanites would come in as invaders, and that Israel would, after a time, come in and conquer them and take back that land. And God, for anybody who still looks at that and says, yeah, but why did God judge the Canaanites so harshly? He says, well, if you didn't get the point that they had 430 years to repent and leave the land, if that wasn't enough for you, that God gave them 430 years to realize that I'm an intruder, I have no business being here, I better get out. The fact that he first gave them 40 years of Israel wandering in the wilderness and them knowing that other kings had been conquered and defeated, and you're next. And they still didn't say, OK, we should get out. And you know that they knew it because even Rahab tells you that we know how your God defeated Sihon and Og and all these others. And we know for a fact that your God has given you this land. So you have these men who already know all of this. And for whatever reason, they choose to ignore it. They choose to stand and say, we saw what God can do. We saw Him part the Red Sea. We saw Him part the River Jordan in this case. We know what He's capable of, but we're going to stand against Him and try to hold on to this. And God says, if that's not a big enough reason, if that's not enough of an explanation for you as to why He says He's going to do this, here's one more thing for the list. This is a list of abominations that were committed by the Canaanites. And he said, I am spewing them out of the land. The land itself is defiled because of their presence, and they're going to be spit out of it, vomited out of it, because of what they have done. And he says, don't let this be you also. Don't be that when you come into this land, that you also commit these same abominations, and I have to kick you out of it too. which we'll get to at some point maybe, but that's a whole other thing with Jeremiah and with the captivity of Babylon, all that stuff. But he's telling him, don't make me do this to you also, that you're going to have to be kicked out. In fact, he even says, so that I don't have to take it away from you, we're going to have a rule that when somebody commits one of these things, it's punishable by death. Because we don't want this stuff to spread in your nation. We don't want this stuff to spread in your families or your households. Because if it gets like it was in Canaan, we're going to have big trouble. So in order to prevent us from getting that way, the crimes are punishable by death on this list. That's what you just read. He says any man that does them is going to be cut off. And so he's giving this understanding that if you do this, you cannot be part of Israel because this kind of stuff cannot be tolerated there. Now you have to understand, we're not Israel. And so we don't get to impose a death penalty because you do any of the things on this list. But we are Bible believers, and we do believe that all Scripture is given by inspiration, and it's all profitable to us. And we do believe that this list should be taken to your house today, and you should have it in your home and say, none of these abominations will be allowed in my home. If you're going to have, as for me, and my house we shall serve the Lord posted on your wall, you should also be willing to commit to this part of that. Because as for me and my house we shall serve the Lord, it doesn't just mean that I'm going to make a public statement that I want to serve God. It means that I'm going to do my best to live according to His Word. And that means that when He gives a list like this and says you're not allowed to do this, and if you're going to be my people and you're going to live for me, you cannot commit these sins, then you should follow that all the way through to the natural conclusion is that if you're a child of God and you're Christian, not every sin is a sin unto death. We understand that. There are some that he says are a sin unto death, that he'll take you out of this world for doing that. But if you want to call yourself a Christian and you want to have, ask for me in my house who will serve the Lord posted on your wall, then you ought to be willing to commit and conform and submit yourself to the Word of God and say if God gives a list and says my people are not allowed to do this, that I will kick them out of the land if they do this, just like I did the Canaanites. That the Canaanites are abominable and disgusting to me because they have done these things. That the Canaanites have went so far against nature that I cannot just accept this anymore. That what they have done is evil beyond evil. And you look at that list and say, well, yeah, it's fine. It's not a big deal. Some of that the stuff I don't like is a big deal. The stuff that's disgusting to me, that's a big deal. But everything on the list is supposed to be seen that way for you. Everything he mentions in this chapter should be seen in that lens for you, that whatever he says, we're going to say as for me and my house, we're not going to do that. And if you're not willing to commit that to say that truly, then you're like Israel. You're willing to say, God, we want all the blessings, we want all the benefits, but we don't want to actually live for you. And you have to be honest with yourself if you're going to say that. So I say that before I get to the one where I'm going to offend the vast majority of people. So let's go back to verse 1 of chapter 18, and we'll go through the list as it's written. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak ye unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt wherein ye dwelt, ye shall not do, and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, ye shall not do, neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. You shall do my judgments and keep my ordinances, and you shall walk therein. I am the Lord your God. And everybody should be able to say amen to that. If he's my God, I should walk in his ordinance and his judgments. I should trust that God knows better than me. That's what he's telling them. When he says you should walk in my ordinances and my judgments, it means you should trust that I know better than you. We're talking about God, that he knows better what you should be doing. He says, verse 5, "...ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him and uncover their nakedness. I am the Lord." And here's where everybody starts to prepare themselves to be offended if you actually know your Bible. Because when I talk about homosexuality, nobody in this room is bothered by that because nobody in this room is a practitioner of that. The worst you may have is that you have a family member or a friend who does that, and so you kind of struggle with that. I don't know that I really like for you to say bad stuff about that. When I talk to you about offering your children and burning them on a sacrifice to an idol, you have no problem with me condemning that because you don't sacrifice your children to idols in that sense. You do it in other ways, but not that sense. When I talk to you about idolatry and how that's the most common thing referred to as an abomination in the entire Bible, you don't have a problem because you don't have a statue at your house. Again, you commit idolatry other ways, but you don't have the statue at your house. So you don't get offended when I preach about that one. And when we start talking about adultery, if you're not committing adultery, you're not going to be offended by that. When we talk about some of the other things on this list, you're not going to be offended by those if you're not doing those. But this one is the one where you have to step back and ask, do I agree with what He just said? Do I agree that I'm going to trust God's judgments, God's standards, God's convictions, what God says, and I'm going to live according to those, and I'm going to dictate my life according to those? Because otherwise you're going to walk away from a message like what you're getting ready to hear today and you're going to be offended at me as a preacher because how dare that preacher tell me how to dress or how to act or how to live when I'm not telling you how to do it. I'm reading you what the Bible says. Because most of you read this list, what he says in the next verse is to think, well, I don't do that. Because he said, don't cover the nakedness of someone close to kin to you. And you don't do that. You don't go into somebody else's room and watch them change. You don't go and record them changing. You don't do any of those kind of things that in your mind you think that's what he's talking about. And immediately by the end of the list, it gets perverse like that. By the end of the list, he's telling you that if you're married to two sisters, you can't make them go to bed with you at the same time and make them see each other's nakedness. But the thing that might surprise you is that the vast majority of what's in this list, if you keep reading the chapter through, isn't talking about sex. He's not telling you about if you go to bed with them, it's a sin. He says if you uncover their nakedness. And that's where we, in ourselves, have trained ourselves to read this passage as if, as long as I'm not sleeping with someone, I'm fine. But that's not what he said. He said not to uncover the neckiness of someone who is close to kin to you. And he goes on to define that list. That's why I said we're not gonna read the list entirely through. This is the one part of the passage I am gonna do some skipping, is because the rest of this, all the way down to verse number 18, I think, or somewhere in that area, It's him defining, what does he mean when he says, next to kin? He says, not your daughter, not your son, not your sister, not your brother, not your wife's sister or brothers, not your husband's sister or brothers, not your children's wives or so forth, not your grandchildren. He goes through and explains, nobody who's close to you should you know what they look like without their clothes. Nobody, unless you're married to them, you shouldn't know what they look like. And we're not talking about babies, obviously, you understand that. That's the one thing where we can use a little bit of understanding that he's not talking about you changing your baby's diaper. Somebody has to do that. He's not talking about you giving a bath to your small child, but he's saying when your child's big enough that they can have something in them to see, you shouldn't see it. You shouldn't know what that looks like anymore. There should be a cutoff point for all of that. And if you grew up in the world and all of your philosophies and judgments and opinions come from the world, I am the biggest heretic you've ever heard right now. Because if you grew up here in Belgium and you have people changing completely, I mean, all the way down underwear and everything on the beach right in front of you, then I'm a crazy person if I say that it's wrong to be naked in front of other people or for other people to be naked in front of you. But the Bible is actually very clear about it. The issue then comes, and this is where we get even more offensive, is what does God define as nakedness? Because that's where the big thing really comes in, that you have to ask yourself the question, am I going to follow His judgments like I said I would? Because I didn't make you say amen at the beginning of the chapter, but I hoped in your heart you could say amen to that. That He's the Lord my God, and I'll follow His judgments, and I'll follow His word, and I'll follow His commandments, and I'll follow all of this. Because then what that means if we agree on that, If we agree that He's our God and we'll follow His judgment, then what you think is naked doesn't matter, what I think is naked doesn't matter. Our opinions are completely irrelevant in this subject. It's what does God say about this? What does God, when He sees this, He says, you're naked in front of people. And I'll be honest with you, your lower body is a lot easier to define than your upper body. I have one thing I'll give you today because this is not a message entirely on nakedness. I could give you 20 more verses if that was the point of the message as a whole. But I am parking and spending a little bit more time on this one because I do feel like this is the one where people in this room are most likely to be hit by it and most likely to be offended by it. And so I want you to get this because you may hate me today when you walk away, but at least I'll give you the Bible and you'll hate me because I told you what God said and not for what I said or my opinion. So what does God define as nakedness then? First time you see God talking about somebody being naked is in the book of Genesis. And in Genesis, you have Adam and Eve when they finally come to the realization that they are naked. And if you ever want a good judgment of when you probably shouldn't be around people who are naked is when they're old enough to understand what it means to be naked. You want a good understanding of when somebody has reached the age of accountability, and they're old enough to make a decision to trust Christ for themselves, is when they're old enough to realize they're naked. That's not a blanket rule. God doesn't explicitly state that in the Bible, but it's a pretty good measuring stick. Like, you have to draw the line somewhere, and that's a pretty good place to draw it, is if somebody's big enough to understand what it means to be naked, to be convicted over that, to have shame over that, then you need to respect that. If somebody's big enough that they can understand they're naked, well, that was the first thing Adam and Eve understood when they realized they were sinners. It's probably a good measurement that they're getting about to the age where they can understand that they're sinners also and see the need to be saved. So it's a completely separate note in this, but when Adam and Eve first were convicted that I'm naked, well, it's because they were completely naked from head to toe. They had nothing. So the first conviction they had there in Genesis chapter 3 was they went and gathered together a bunch of leaves, and they sewed them together and they made aprons. So what that tells you about Adam and Eve is that they covered themselves on the front. And that's what an apron covers. An apron doesn't cover your back. I mean, technically, I guess you could wrap it around and tie and cover your buttocks, but it doesn't cover your back, like the actual back of your body here. It doesn't really cover you very well. It covers you minimally. But they said, this is the best I have to offer. This is my good works. And it's a good picture of salvation in this in terms of Christ said that it's not enough for you to be covered in your good works and in the fruit of your hands. You need to be covered by the blood of the lamb. And so he sprinkled the blood of a lamb or some other animal and made them coats of skins. And the verse where he tells you he made them coats of skins is Genesis 321. That God said, you covered your front and said, that's good enough. I'm saying you got to cover more than that if you don't want to be naked anymore. God said, if you want me to cover your nakedness, it's going to take more than just putting an apron on your chest and covering your chest. You have to have something more. And so anybody who says that nakedness only pertains to the lower body, because that's an argument you'll hear sometimes, is going to have a hard time explaining why God said you need to cover up your chest, you need to cover up your back, all this stuff's going to be covered by a coat, you need to cover that. Shouldn't nobody be looking at that part of you if you don't want to be naked? You're convicted you're naked? Then cover it up. And God made them jackets then. So God said, you said in the best of your ability, as long as I'm not showing my chest area, I'm good to go. God said, no, you need to cover your whole body here. You need to cover it all. And so he made them jackets to cover them. He made them coats. You can disagree with that. You can argue with that. I'll be honest. That's the one thing that when it comes to nakedness, it's a little bit harder to define. And if you just look for an excuse to ignore the Bible, you're welcome to find one there. That's between you and God, not between you and me. But it's very clear if you actually sit back and think about it, they said, I'm going to cover my nakedness by covering my breast. God said, no, you're going to cover a little bit more than that. You're going to cover that upper body and you're not going to show that to anybody if you don't want to be naked. So that's between you and God, what you do with that. But that's what's very clearly happened in the passage. However, when it comes to legs and lower body, that's actually super easy to define, because God tells you two different times what it means to be naked in regards to your lower body. God says in Leviticus, I'm sorry, in Exodus, sorry I'm getting behind in my verses. Exodus chapter 28 and verse number 42. and I'll go there and read it for you. This is the passage concerning the clothing of the priest. And I've got a better one, so before you say, oh, that's not good for me, because that's about the priest, don't worry, I have a very good one for you too. But Exodus 28 and verse 42, you have God describing the clothing of the priest. And I'm going to be honest with you, I'm going to say something a little bit controversial about this passage, in that most people read this when he talks about making britches or pants for a priest, and they say, well, that's his underwear. And I'm going to show you that that's a dumb argument and just very clearly from the passage. But I'm also going to ask you to consider what does the Bible actually say because the word underwear or undergarment is not used to describe those britches any time in this passage. You believe that because a pastor got up and told you that somebody wrote a book about that and said that. But at no point in the passage or in the scripture does it say that you didn't get it from God is what I'm saying. So you can keep believing it if you want to. That's again something between you and God. But you didn't get it from God you got it from somebody else. So let's see what he actually says in the passage. Exodus 28 and verse number 42. It says, So again, he doesn't call it underwear or undergarment. He doesn't say, he says it's under the robe, of course, because the definition of the robe is the shirt of the robe is whichever part of the robe comes past your belt line. So yes, he does mention it being under the robe. I'll give you that. Like I didn't sign in the verse, but I'll tell you that because I'm not going to be dishonest with you. that he mentions that it's under the robe because it does go below the beltline part of the robe. But it doesn't say that he's wearing this as underwear. In fact, he says he's wearing it to not be naked. He says to cover his nakedness, you're going to make him britches. Now, if you think that that means that he was wearing this as underwear, then tomorrow you go to work in your underwear and tell me if you're considered to be naked or not. Because by definition, he said if he's wearing these pants, he's not naked there anymore. He's covered. He's good to go. So he's not saying these are underwear. He's saying these are pants that he's going to wear. Of course, they're going to go under the robe in some part, because a robe, by definition, extends beyond the belt line and therefore covers some part of you, just like long jackets or anything else would. But it's not that the robe was covering the nakedness of his legs. It's that the britches cover the neckness of his leg. And britches means pants. It's the same word as pants. So anybody who ever told you that's underwear, got it from somewhere other than God. Anybody who told you that the robe covered his neck and it's got it from somewhere other than God in regards to his legs, we're told that the pants cover him. But where does he specifically make sure you understand that they have to make it this far in order for it to count? He says they have to cover his loins, which is the entire area around your belt and all that area through there. God talks about all of that as being your loins in the Bible. He talks about women girding about their loins. He talks about men girding up their loins. And he describes that whole area around the whole belt line and down buttocks, all of that private area, all of that. I'm trying to be respectful in what I'm saying. All of that's defined as loins. So he says from your loins all the way down to your knee, he says, if any of the thigh is uncovered, that priest is naked. If His thigh is shown to the people, He is naked in the eyes of God. So you understand something that God is telling you that in His eyes, if your thigh is visible, you are naked. And this is where you don't have to agree with me. I'll give you more Scripture for it. But you have to ask, do you believe God? You have to ask, is He the one who's leading you in your decisions, or is it me? So Isaiah 47 2-3 And we'll read verse one just for context. It says, come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. Give on the ground. There is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans, for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstone and grind mill. Uncover thy locks. Make bare thy leg. Uncover thy thigh. Pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered. Yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance and I will not meet thee as a man. So he's talking to women. And I'm going to be honest, we'll be back in this passage next week as we talk about feminism and all of that. But he's talking to women and he's talking about them leaving their tenderness. And he says that when they do this, just might as well go ahead and uncover your thigh and be naked. That's the statement he makes to them. He says in one verse, you're going to uncover your thigh. And the next verse, he says, you're going to be naked because of that. So according to God, you don't have to agree with me, you can be angry with me for the rest of the week, I don't care, I mean I don't like it, but it's your decision what you do with that information. You have two passages there, again I have more. There's passages where he talks to Israel about the fact that when they're led away captive, that their thighs are gonna be uncovered and their buttocks will be seen and all of this and they'll be naked. And he emphasizes the thigh in those passages many times. There's plenty of times in the Bible where God defines nakedness as being if I can see certain parts of your chest or back that would not be covered by that jacket or coat, and when I can see your thighs. And if I can see those, God says by His standard, you're naked. And again, this is where it all comes down to is you don't have to agree with me on any of that. You don't have to believe me, but you have to go to that Bible verse. And if I am wrong, you have to tell me why that doesn't count as nakedness. When God says, if it's uncovered, you're naked. You have to give an answer to God, not to me, not to anyone else. You have to give an answer to God as to why that verse doesn't apply to you. Why that verse doesn't mean naked for you, it only means naked for everybody else. When God clearly and adamantly defined that if your thigh is visible to someone, you are naked in the eyes of God. If your chest, your back is visible to someone, you are naked, that's why He still had to make the coats for them. So you have to decide for yourself what that means, what you believe about it. That's fine. I'm not here to bully you and tell you you have to agree with me on something. But I am telling you, you have to at least be honest with the Bible, and what does the Bible say about this? Because he said if that priest is not covered from his loins to his thigh, all the way down his thigh to his knee, then he is naked in the eyes of God. And he said in this verse, when a woman uncovers her thigh, she is naked in the eyes of God. So what that means, and the reason I'm jumping on this, and the reason I'm harping on this right now, is because we're getting ready to talk about all those sins that doesn't matter to you, because you don't do those things. But he starts this chapter, and he gives one verse to homosexuality, one verse to bestiality, one verse to divorce, one verse to perversion in terms of sexual perversion, one verse to idolatry and sacrificing your children, and he goes from verse 6 to about verse 17, 18, telling you to be very careful that your daughters, your sons, you don't see your daughter, you shouldn't know what her thigh looks like if she's old enough to know what it means to be naked. You shouldn't know what your son's chest and back and breast and his legs and thighs look like. You shouldn't know what your brothers or sisters or your parents' chest and back and thighs and breast and all that stuff look like, because to you it may not be a big deal. Society may say it's not a big deal. They say it's okay. But the same society that tells you that's okay has one department of the store where they tell you this is underwear. You're not allowed to wear this in public. If you're walking down the street wearing this, we will call the police on you, and you might be put in jail. But then right beside of that has bikinis that cover the exact same amount of skin, but you're allowed to wear those. You can wear that one in the street and walk down the street and nobody cares, just depending some places you might get in trouble. But in general, you can wear them a lot of places and not get in trouble. But this one, if you wear this in the presence of children, you're going to jail, man. You're going to be on jail. You're going to be put on a list. And for the rest of your life, they're going to watch you to see if you're a pedophile or not. But you can dress in this same thing, covers the same amount of skin, and walk by all the children you want on the beach and nobody cares about it. So if you're foolish enough to get your theology and your doctrine and your philosophies from society, you can do that. But you understand that God is not God in your life if you're getting your doctrine and philosophies and judgment and all this stuff from society instead of God. And that's why I tell you, you don't have to agree with me. I'm not Lord over your life. I'm here to feed you and help you to understand the Word of God, but I'm not here to Lord over you and come check and see how you're dressing and what you're doing and all this kind of stuff every day. But I would be a liar if I stood up here in front of you and told you that the Word of God doesn't define nakedness because it does. I'd be a liar if I stood up here and told you that God doesn't care because He does. In this passage, He says, you want to know where all this starts? You want to know why society embraces homosexuality? It's because they embrace nakedness first. You want to know why society is willing to sacrifice their children on the altar and life is not precious to them? Because they embrace nakedness first. You want to know why society is willing to go as far as bestiality, necrophilia, all these kind of disgusting things? Because they embrace nakedness first. And you wanna know how you can raise children that do not care about God when they're 20, 30, 40 years old? It's because you embrace nakedness in your house, and they're allowed to walk around in what would be considered underwear in any other context, where they'd be put on a list and called a pedophile in any other context, but it's okay because the world said it's okay. And I'm telling you now, you don't have to listen to me, but you better give an answer to God as to why you're not going to listen to Him, but you have asked for me and my house will serve the Lord hanging on your wall, and you call yourself a Christian and you say that He's your God, but then some parts of the Bible don't have to apply to you. You don't have to answer to me, but you have to answer to God in heaven. And that's the thing where I may offend you today, and I'm fine with that, because I'm willing to pay that consequence to be honest with you and tell you the truth, that you cannot keep turning your back on the Word of God. God has said that this is defined as nakedness, and if I was preached to an empty church next Sunday, this is still nakedness. It hasn't changed in the Bible. You may change and turn your back on God, but God's Word stands. And I don't care if one person or every person says I'm wrong and disagrees with me, the Bible stands, because it is the Word of God. And you may sit here and think you're holier than this world because you don't practice homosexuality, and you may think you're better than them because you don't practice all this other perversion, you're not addicted to pornography or whatever else, but God says if everybody on Facebook knows what your chest back or thigh looks like, you're just as guilty of abomination as they are. It may not be the same level, it may not be the same thing, but it's an abomination in the eyes of God. And you can do whatever you want, you can take it or you can leave it, but the Word of God has not changed on that. And the Word of God will not change on any of this. God gives you a list that for the next part of this, He tells you that if you're sacrificing your children to idols, you're an abomination. You're worshiping idols, you're an abomination. You're practicing homosexuality, you're an abomination. You're a man who's wearing women's clothing, you're walking around in skirts and stuff, you're an abomination. You're a woman wearing men's clothing, I'll let you define for yourself what that means. You're a woman wearing men's clothing, you're an abomination. God's given you a list of all these things, and He's saying you're an abomination, and we're all sitting here saying, well, I'm better than the world, I'm holy, and I'm okay, and I didn't do anything wrong, when half of the chapter, two-thirds of the chapter, is talking about stuff that people sitting in this congregation do every week. Two-thirds of this chapter is saying the things you do are an abomination, but you're okay because you didn't do the other one-third. Tommy, think about how ridiculous that is. Think about how spitting in the face of God that is. That we're going to sit here in a church and sing, oh, how I love Jesus. We're going to sing about how great he is and how he's our God and how we're going to worship him and we're going to serve him. We're going to do all these things. And then we're going to go home tomorrow, tonight even, and take everything that his word says and say, well, I don't care about that part because I don't want to change my life there. I don't care about that part because I'm not going to change. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. But you have to be honest with God, not just with yourselves. You have to be honest with God and not just with yourselves, that I shouldn't know what you look like in the parts of your body that God said is nakedness. I shouldn't have any idea. And that's why some of you are blocked on Facebook from me. I'm not going to tell you who's who, but some people who go to this church have been unfollowed or blocked by me on Facebook because I'm not willing to look at that vulgar, perverse things that are being posted. And that's a shame. That is a truly shameful thing when your pastor says, I can't be friends with you on social media because the stuff you're showing to the world is ungodly, wicked, and perverse. You may not be promoting homosexuality, you may not be cussing and using bad language, but I can't let my eyes look on that because I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look on such things. I made a covenant with my eyes that I'm doing my best not to look on such things, and I have to fight it on every corner of the world, and I have to fight it in the church too. That's vile. He said vile affection. If you love that close so much you're not willing to give it up for God and change it for God, that's vile affection by definition. I'm telling you once more that you don't have to agree. He has the list. And let me keep going because I've got so focused. I told you I was going to focus on this because the other ones have their time and they have their attention in the other part of the chapter. This one's special and God spent two thirds of the chapter talking about it. So God apparently considers it worth spending a little more time on. So that's why we did it. But if we're looking at Leviticus 18, verse number 18, 19, and 20, I'm lumping those together because it's pretty much the same idea in terms of what's wrong with it, is it's about perversion and giving into your lust and being controlled by it in many parts. But I'm going to talk about those, I'll talk about them individually, we're going to read them all at once. Leviticus 18, verse 19, or verse... Leviticus 18 and verse 18, we'll start back in. It says, So this is the part where he says, if you're going to commit polygamy, you're going to have more than one wife. You're not going to have her lay in the bed with the other wife and have them both naked side by side. This is one of those ones for children. I will be a little bit careful for it. You will know that God clearly condemns a lot of things. The world says it's okay. You can have as many partners as you want. You can invite somebody else to your bedroom. God said right now it's an abomination. I don't think anybody in this room has to be preached very hard on that because I think everybody here has enough decency to understand that. We haven't made it that far on the list. Thankfully, most of us got stuck on the first point. But, he says, when you keep going, you get to the point where perversion is so normal and natural to you that this abomination of going against nature and the design is so easy for you that you get to a point where you're willing to take and have somebody else in the bedroom with you and your wife. That's disgusting in the eyes of God. It's an abomination. It's disgusting because it's against nature, but it's an abomination. And then verse number 19 says, Now this is one where you have to understand it in the context of Jewish laws. This is not something where it's necessarily you have to apply it one for one today. You have to understand it in its context. That in Jewish law, there were things just like the dietary. I would say this is the same thing about dietary law. Everything in the dietary law is called an abomination in the eyes of God. But yet God wrote entire passages, entire stories in the Bible telling you that you're not a Jew. That's not for you. What God said is clean. Don't call it unclean. You get pray over it with thanksgiving and receive it with thanks. And it's good enough in the eyes of God. So that whole section of what's an abomination doesn't really apply to you. You can learn from it. You can get information from it and see that God cares about your health. But in terms of trying to apply it one for one, you're going to mess up. And the same thing is true of this, and that's what this represents in the passage, is all those kind of things. God says, He told Israel, don't do this. And this is when I have to be very careful for the sake of children. That's why, again, I'm trying today. I spent my time where I judged properly with children in the room. When He says in this particular case, that you're not to lie with a woman when she's put apart for uncleanness. You understand that there were times, according to the law, that a man had to leave his wife alone for a little while. Now, some of you who have children less than a year apart obviously don't understand or appreciate any of that, but there were laws given for that. And those laws concerning this said that a man during the first part of the delivery was not allowed to go to his wife. When it was her certain time of the month, he was not allowed to go to her. And God says, why would you if I said don't do that? Why would you do that? Why would you go against what I said and do something that is unnatural because I told you don't do it? It's not that it's a sin per se, it's a sin because he said, don't do it. He said, why would you do this when you know that you're going against my commandments to do it? Why would you do this directly in disobedience to me? That's the point he's making when he calls in an abomination to do this. because he doesn't call a lot of this abomination in other places. But here he's making the point that if God gives you an explicit commandment to do, thank you brother, to do or not to do something and you say, well, I don't really care. I'm going to go do whatever I want to because your flesh and your lust and your perversion says, I need this. He says, that's an abomination. You're going against nature because your lust is not supposed to control you. And then if you go to the next verse in verse number 20, It says, moreover thou shall not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife to defile thyself with her. So this is where you get into adultery. And he says if a man's committing adultery, he's with another man's wife, it is an abomination to the eyes of God because you made a covenant. You made a commitment between you and your wife that you are going to be committed to her till death do you part. It is a promise that you made to God. And if you're entertaining another woman, you're considering another woman, you're talking to another woman, giving time and affection in a way that's not natural to another woman, God says you're an abomination just like he calls homosexuality and everything else. So you may not think it's a big deal. This is one where I will park on a little bit. You may not think it's a big deal that you have women that you text and talk to and all of this. You may not think it's a big deal that you spend a lot of time with someone from the opposite sex. You may not think that's a big deal, but God says when you start going down that path that adultery is an abomination in the eyes of God to the point that He says He likens it unto homosexuality. Again, the list starts with... getting comfortable with nakedness, but then it goes to being controlled by your lust, it goes to taking advantage of situations where, in that case, both of them were married. He said it's still wrong, it's still an abomination in the eyes of God. And now he's saying you're going after someone else's wife, that's an abomination. You're going after someone who's not your wife, that's an abomination. You're going after someone else's husband, that's an abomination. He's saying all of that is against God's design because he made man and woman from the very beginning to be one flesh, and they're not to be chasing after somebody else's. And God says it's an abomination when you go against that. Then if you go with me to verse number 21, this is where we see idolatry. So he reminds you one more time. You started this passage by saying he's your God. If you're still willing to say that, then you're not going to sacrifice your children to idols. If you're still willing to say that, you're not going to give your children over to the idols of this world and let them be sacrificed. And he's giving it in the most literal sense right here, where he's talking about them taking the child and placing them in the hands of the bronze statue we talked about before and burning it and worshiping to the cries of their dying child as it screams out in agony and pain, something that we can't even understand. Nobody in this room can look at that and understand why a person would ever do that. And yet, if you want me to apply this to your life, you do it. You just don't do it the same way. You send your children to go do things that God said they should never do, and you sit there in the audience and you applaud and say how wonderful and how beautiful that is, while they're on a stage naked, if we're going to stay in that context, or while they're on a stage doing something else, singing music that you would never let them listen to at home, or doing things that you never let them do at home, and they're there doing things that you know dishonor and disrespect God, Everybody else is offering their children on the altar. Everybody else's children are allowed to do that. Everybody else's children are allowed to go to that movie. They're allowed to listen to that music. They're allowed to see that thing. They're allowed to play that game. Everybody else's children have these activities in their life. And so why would I deprive my children of such things? You understand when you have that attitude, you're sacrificing your children on a different altar? You're sacrificing, it may not be Moloch, but you're sacrificing to the God of this world, the devil. When you let the world tell you how to raise your children, you're sacrificing them because you have to fit into society. Everybody else burnt their children in the hands of Moloch, so you have to burn yours too. That's the same attitude. And so, so much of what he's saying may not apply to you directly, word for word, because Moloch's not worshipped here. But there's still a God that's worshipped here, and it's not the God of the Bible. The devil is the God of this world, and he's worshipped every day across this country. And every day, people in this church and friends and family and all of that are far more guilty than we'd ever admit of letting our children watch things, do things, go places, say things, all that stuff that would dishonor God in every step of it, just because we don't want to cost them having some of the enjoyments of this world. And God says, if you could just see that what you're doing to them is the same as burning them in the hand of Moloch. If you could just see that offering them up on that altar every day and letting the world have its way with them is the same thing as burning them in the hands of Moloch, because you're destroying them little by little every day. Every day you're turning them over to this world and destroying them. That's what God's asking you to see in this passage. And He says, if He's your God, why are you doing it? If He's your God, why are you sacrificing your children to somebody else's God? That's the question He's asking you. Then verse number 22 says, Again, we'll get there, I think, two, three weeks from now. So we'll spend more time on it then. You understand what he means. He's talking about homosexuality. He's talking about going against the natural design of men and women to participate in such things while Other things are not mentioned in this passage. There are other sins that are very similar and connected that are talked about in different places. Again, transgender, cross-dressing, or even just honestly men wearing things that make them look feminine and women wearing things that make them look masculine are all in God's list of things that he says are an abomination, which I'm not getting into today, so you can be thankful for that. That's the next most offensive thing I could talk about. All right, and then verse number 20. Verse number 22, or verse number 23. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself, therewith neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down, thereto it is confusion. I am not going to press this one further because we do have a room with several children in it. But you understand what he just said. You're not dumb, you're not immature, you understand exactly what he meant when he said that. You understand why that's disgusting, and that's why we don't have to talk about that one yet, because even our society, even the world hasn't got that far yet. They are, there are people that do it, but I'm talking about in terms of it's common, it's on the news, it's on all the TV shows, all this stuff, it hasn't got there yet. So you understand the world, you can check on the list and see where they are. Now that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable, think about the timeline. You go back about a hundred years ago when nakedness started to become normal, when women started showing all their body and men started showing all their body, and that became acceptable, especially as the invention of things like TV where it could be put out, or magazines where it could be put out openly and easily published, as that became more and more normal, did not everything else we just talked about become more and more normal? Did not everything else we just said on this list get more and more normal with each passing decade? With each generation, this became acceptable, and now it's celebrated, many of these things. Nakedness is celebrated. We have parades for it. We have people walking on catwalks and showing themselves off. There's posters everywhere. If you walk out the door and go left, you'll find a whole store full of pictures of naked women in the windows because underwear is not naked if it's an underwear store. They have to advertise that outside. Do you understand prostitutes had more decency than most people living in Christian homes have nowadays, a hundred years ago? But what happened? We normalized nakedness. We said, it's okay. You can show that part of your body to everybody else. You can show it wherever you want. And we said, that's okay. And as a society, we began to accept that. And then perversion within marriage to where your partner became an object of lust for you to satisfy and fulfill your lust became normal and acceptable in society. To where before They were scared to show a husband and wife sleeping in the same bed on a TV. And now you have husbands and wives cheating and everything else that you can imagine going on on television because it's normal and accepted in society. It's OK. All of that perversion, all that stuff became a little more acceptable once nakedness was celebrated, perversion became celebrated. And as perversion became celebrated, the next thing that came along with that is what he talks about. Like, why would you do something God told you not to do? When he's talking about not being with your wife at certain times. He said, why would Israel do that when he told him not to? And then it got to the point where we begin to make jokes about the stuff that God said, don't do that. And we laugh as society mocks you and criticizes you because you would dare say, I'm not going to do that because God said, don't do that. And you see that became celebrated and acceptable and common in your society. You're living in right now and can see it with your own eyes. And as you go on, you'll see that it gets to the point where adultery and marriage ending and all that kind of stuff just becomes normal. It's expected that people are going to do that. And if you don't see that in society, I'm thankful that you are able to keep your eyes closed as well as you do because it's all around you. You can't watch a TV show, you can't read a book, you can't pick up a magazine, you can't go on Facebook, you can't go anywhere without adultery being celebrated, that it's okay, he was bad to you, he deserved that. And that's the world we live in, it's become normal and acceptable. And if you just keep pressing on a little further, you'll find that once nakedness was okay, and marriage and decency and morality in that area was all gone, the very next thing that came along after the free love movement and all of that, was homosexuality and it became celebrated and it became accepted and now you have entire months to celebrate it. You have an entire month and it's not good enough because it still goes on throughout the year. You have their flag being flown, as I said the other day, at every embassy in the country. You have their stuff being celebrated. I guess the Muslims at least still have more decency than others on that. But you have the fact that they're celebrated across this world and you're the bad guy. Like if you have an opinion, anything I just said, I'm a bad guy sitting in Christian churches for half of that. Half of what I just said, if I go stand in a Baptist church anywhere else in the world, and probably among some of you, I don't know, you haven't told me yet. But if I go stand in a Baptist church anywhere else in the world and say what I just said to you, I'm the bad guy. I'm what's wrong with this world. People like me are holding back society. And things that we at one time had enough decency and morals about us to realize that's vile, that's evil in the eyes of God, it's against God's design and nature, are celebrated. While those who say, God is my God, so I'm going to listen to Him, are rejected and shunned and put down and cast away for it. So you have to be honest, is He your God or not? Now, I'm way out of time, so I'm not going to get to the stuff in Proverbs. But the stuff in Proverbs, I can simplify it. Most of it's concerning lying. Most of it's concerning pride. It's the non-sexual things. It's the other kind of stuff. It's not the perversion that leads from this style of life to this style of life. And I'll give you a list very quickly. Proverbs 3.23 says a froward man. A froward man is an abomination. A froward man is someone who's willing to play with the truth, who's willing to twist it and misuse it to try to get the results that he wants. And he says anybody who's willing to play with the truth is an abomination in the eyes of God. He says in Proverbs 6, 16 through I think 19 or so, somewhere in that area, that those who lie, those who bear false witness against other people, those are an abomination to God. He says in Proverbs 8, 7, that wicked words are an abomination, but in other parts of Proverbs, he says a wicked heart, a wicked way, a wicked doing, lots of stuff about wickedness. He says it's an abomination to the eyes of God. Proverbs 11.1, we just talked about this a few weeks ago, that a false balance is an abomination to God. It's when you're dishonest in business and in finance, where you're willing to cheat and steal to get ahead. He says it's an abomination in the eyes of God. And then he says in Proverbs 16.5, and there's probably more that I didn't write down. Proverbs 16.5, he says a proud heart is an abomination to God. You want to talk about things that probably would hit a church harder than anything I talked about? Let me buckle down and spend another hour talking about pride, lying, dishonesty, cheating financially, all that kind of stuff, because if I didn't offend you with anything else, I'll surely get you with that. Because every person in here struggles with something on that list. And I'm telling you that you may sit and look at a world where homosexuality is embraced and think, well, I'm better than them because I didn't make it that far on the list. But he said none of those abominations are to be practiced amongst his people. And he spent two thirds of the chapter saying nakedness needs to be covered. They spent an entire book of Proverbs telling you to be honest, decent, true. Don't play with the truth. Don't manipulate. Don't cheat to get ahead. Be right and honest and trust God to take care of it. So you can feel like you're better than someone else because you didn't make it to their list of sin. But if you're on the list at all, God said you have to question, is he really your God or not? If you're on that list at all, you have to question, are you listening to him? Are you listening to the world? Who's giving you your judgments and morals and decency? That's the point he's making when he says all of this. Father, we thank you and praise you, God, for all that you do. I pray that your watch over us helps to serve you. I thank you, God, for your goodness and your blessings. I pray that you take what's been said here today, use it, God, to speak to every heart of every person. I pray God should help us, Lord, not to walk away proud and angry because somebody preached against something in our life, but that each of us, myself included, the things that afflict us, that we take it to heart and realize that if you're our God, we need to change that. I thank you, God, for all this, and we ask it in your son Jesus' name, amen.